6.2.Â Browsers

FreeBSD does not come with a pre-installed web browser.
Instead, the www
category of the Ports Collection contains many browsers which
can be installed as a package or compiled from the Ports
Collection.

This section demonstrates how to install the following
popular web browsers and indicates if the application is
resource-heavy, takes time to compile from ports, or has any
major dependencies.

Application Name

Resources Needed

Installation from Ports

Notes

Firefox

medium

heavy

FreeBSD, LinuxÂ®, and localized versions are
available

Opera

light

light

FreeBSD and LinuxÂ® versions are available

Konqueror

medium

heavy

Requires KDE
libraries

Chromium

medium

heavy

Requires Gtk+

6.2.1.Â Firefox

Firefox is an open source
browser that is fully ported to FreeBSD. It features a
standards-compliant HTML display engine, tabbed browsing,
popup blocking, extensions, improved security, and more.
Firefox is based on the
Mozilla codebase.

To install the package of the latest release version of
Firefox, type:

The Ports Collection can instead be used to compile the
desired version of Firefox from
source code. This example builds
www/firefox, where
firefox can be replaced with the ESR or
localized version to install.

#cd /usr/ports/www/firefox#make install clean

6.2.2.Â Opera

Opera is a full-featured and
standards-compliant browser which is still lightweight and
fast. It comes with a built-in mail and news reader, an IRC
client, an RSS/Atom feeds reader, and more. It is available
as a native FreeBSD version and as a version that runs under
LinuxÂ® emulation.

This command installs the package of the FreeBSD version of
Opera. Replace
opera with linux-opera
to instead install the LinuxÂ® version.

#pkg install opera

Alternately, install either version through the Ports
Collection. This example compiles the native version:

#cd /usr/ports/www/opera#make install clean

To install the LinuxÂ® version, substitute
linux-opera in place of
opera.

To install AdobeÂ® FlashÂ® plugin support, first compile
the www/linux-flashplayer
port. Licensing restrictions prevent making a package
available. Then install www/opera-linuxplugins. This example
compiles both applications from ports:

6.2.3.Â Konqueror

Konqueror is more than a web
browser as it is also a file manager and a multimedia
viewer. It is included in the
x11/kde4-baseapps package or port.

Konqueror supports WebKit as
well as its own KHTML. WebKit is a rendering engine used by
many modern browsers including Chromium. To use WebKit with
Konqueror on FreeBSD, install the
www/kwebkitpart package
or port. This example installs the package:

#pkg install kwebkitpart

To install from the Ports Collection:

#cd /usr/ports/www/kwebkitpart#make install clean

To enable WebKit within
Konqueror, click
“Settings”, “Configure Konqueror”.
In the “General” settings page, click the
drop-down menu next to “Default web browser
engine” and change “KHTML” to
“WebKit”.

6.2.4.Â Chromium

Chromium is an open source
browser project that aims to build a safer, faster, and more
stable web browsing experience.
Chromium features tabbed browsing,
popup blocking, extensions, and much more.
Chromium is the open source project
upon which the Google Chrome web browser is based.

Chromium can be installed as a
package by typing:

#pkg install chromium

Alternatively, Chromium can be
compiled from source using the Ports Collection:

#cd /usr/ports/www/chromium#make install clean

Note:

The executable for Chromium
is /usr/local/bin/chrome, not
/usr/local/bin/chromium.